THE gunman who killed 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub had fought in Syria for Islamic State jihadists, local media report, as Turkish authorities continue their hunt for the attacker.

Police released pictures of the suspect who went on the rampage at the plush Reina nightclub on New Year’s night, spraying some 120 bullets at terrified guests before slipping away into the night.

Of the 39 dead, 27 were foreigners, mainly from Arab countries, with coffins repatriated overnight to countries including Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

The Islamic State group on Monday claimed the massacre, the first time it has clearly stated being behind a major attack in Turkey.

The government said Monday that eight people had been detained but media reports said the number had increased to 12 after new detentions in the Anatolian city of Konya.

The Dogan news agency said they included a woman suspected of being his wife but gave no further details.

Men carry the coffins of Saudi victims who were killed in an attack on the Reina nightclub on New Year’s Eve in Istanbul. Picture: AFP

The Hurriyet daily said the attacker showed signs of being well trained in the use of arms and had fought in Syria for IS jihadists.

Hurriyet’s well-connected columnist Abdulkadir Selvi said the attacker had been identified, with investigators focusing on the idea he was from Central Asia.

Selvi said he had been trained in street fighting in residential areas in Syria and used these techniques in the attack, shooting from the hip rather than as a sniper.

The attacker had been “specially selected” to carry out the shooting, he said. According to Hurriyet, just 28 bullets failed to hit a target.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday that the authorities had obtained fingerprint data about the gunman and expressed hope he would be “speedily” identified.

Selvi wrote that the priority now was to detain the assailant and neutralise the cell that apparently backed him, in order to prevent any new attack.

“This specially trained terrorist has still not been detained and is still wandering dangerously among us,” he wrote.

He said that an IS strike was also planned in Ankara on New Year’s night but that it had been prevented after eight IS suspects were arrested in the capital. There were no further details.

SUSPECT’S IMAGE RELEASED

Video footage has emerged of the prime suspect in the Istanbul nightclub terror attack after he slaughtered 39 New Year’s Eve partygoers.

The picture, released by the Turkish police and taken from Dogan News Agency, shows the main suspect who stormed into the Reina nightclub and opened fire at random.

The suspect is seen staring into his smartphone camera as he films himself in the popular meeting area of Taksim Square.

He is pictured wearing a black hooded puffer jacket as he walks around and smirks at the lens.

The new photo released by Turkish police and taken from Dogan News Agency. Picture: AFP

Jihad in Istanbul

By Robert Spencer – on January 1, 2017

The Mirror reported Sunday that the Muslim who “gunned down 39 people and injured 69 with a machine gun in an Istanbul nightclub ‘screamed Allahu Akbar’ during massacre – an eye-witness has revealed.” And so once again we see the universal hallmark of jihad terror attacks, the assertion that Islam is superior, that Allah is greater than all the gods, and all the political systems, of the infidels. Nonetheless, the response from non-Muslim leaders has been drearily predictable.

The predictable aspect came not in the usual denials that the attack had anything to do with Islam, but that may be only because of the scarcity of verified details about the attack itself. That the jihad terrorist screamed “Allahu akbar” did not come to light until hours after the attack, when an eyewitness recounted: “At first we thought some men were fighting with each other. Then we heard the sound of the gunfire and ducked under the tables. We heard the guy screaming Allahu akbar, all three of us heard that … We heard his footsteps crushing the broken glass. We got out through the kitchen, there was blood everywhere and bodies.”

It will be hard for authorities to insist that this attack had nothing to do with Islam in light of the “Allahu akbar” and the Islamic State’s repeated exhortations to Muslims to strike out at Infidels celebrating the New Year – but they will find a way. Meanwhile, they have issued their usual fatuous pronouncements. AFP reported that “National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said the United States condemned in the strongest terms the ‘horrific terrorist attack.’”

The National Security Council condemned the attack? Great! Was this ever really in doubt? The rush of Western leaders to issue a condemnation after every jihad terror attack is increasingly embarrassing. These condemnations are hollow and meaningless, and indeed are an admission of impotence, unless they’re backed up by action. But does the Obama NSC have any intention of pursuing the Istanbul jihad murderer and bringing him to justice? Almost certainly not. Their condemnation will not be backed up by any action whatsoever, and doesn’t mean a thing except as an exercise in bizarrely gratuitous virtue-signaling.

It was not a tragedy. A tidal wave is a tragedy. This is a war. To pretend that jihad terror is a tragedy is to imply that it is inevitable, an act of God, a part of life, just something that one has to tolerate, the way the victims of a devastating hurricane simply have to get on with their lives.

But jihad terror is, in reality, nothing like that at all. It is preventable. It can be stopped. But only if authorities make the hard choices to implement measures that people such as Jens Stoltenberg wouldn’t dare even contemplate: a moratorium on Muslim immigration, the deportation of criminal aliens, the requiring of mosques to teach against the al-Qaeda/ISIS understanding of Islam, and more. Since the current mainstream authorities would rather be caught dead than implement politically incorrect measures, these “tragedies” will continue to become more common.

No, you don’t. With your immigration policies, you continue to work to make them more common. All of the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had just entered Europe as refugees. Is it racism and xenophobia to recall that in February 2015, the Islamic State boasted it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees? Or that the Lebanese Education Minister said in September 2015 that there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country?

Meanwhile, 80% of migrants who have come to Europe claiming to be fleeing the war in Syria aren’t really from Syria at all. So why are they claiming to be Syrian and streaming into Europe, and now the U.S. as well? An Islamic State operative gave the answer when he boasted in September 2015, shortly after the migrant influx began, that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had already entered Europe. He explained their purpose: “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah.” These Muslims were going to Europe in the service of that caliphate: “They are going like refugees,” he said, but they were going with the plan of sowing blood and mayhem on European streets. As he told this to journalists, he smiled and said, “Just wait.”

On May 10, 2016, Patrick Calvar, the head of France’s DGSI internal intelligence agency, said that the Islamic State was using migrant routes through the Balkans to get jihadis into Europe.

Mogherini is one of the people most responsible for this situation. It is her tragedy – and that of her friends and colleagues. And there will, thanks to those same people, plenty more of them.